"You are not gonna eat that?" Gita asked Nila who sat beside her, It had been a few minutes now, but the girl only stared at the ham sandwich she had gave her.

Nila turned to her, "I am not hungry." She gave her a weak smile and looked away.

Gita followed the trace of her gaze and found it ended at Jake who sat under a tree across them. The boy were hugging both his knees and hung his head low, hiding his depressed face.

"You should talk to him." She advised the girl. Nila looked at her, conflicted.

Gita assumed the girl probably still felt fear of him, but at the same time she didn't want him to be broken beyond repair, and he did having melt down right now.

"He is your boyfriend, no?" Gita nudged the girl a little, "If a single wound is all it takes to traumatize you, then you are not fit to be a hunter. If a single misunderstanding is all it takes for you to throw away your love for him, than you are not fit to be a lover."

Her words visibly bored down into her chest, and she clenched her hand tighter in front of her heart.

Nila stood up and walked to Jake. She sat in front of him, "Jake..." She softly called as she put a hand on one of his knees.

Jake looked up and their gaze met. His eyes were kind of red, possibly from crying earlier.

" I..." Nila lost for words. Honestly she didn't even know what she wanted to say to him, but seeing him being miserable like this...,

"It's alright, Jake. You didn't really mean to, and I am alright now. Everything is fine in the end." She tried to console him.

"... no it is not." He denied.

"Jak--"

"I. almost. killed. you." He cut her words before she could finish it. Shaken was his voice, anger and regret in it.

"You are being overly dramatic, boy." said a familiar voice from another tree across them.

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Jake and Nila looked at Salas who was laying on the ground, both her hands pillowed her head, a handkerchief covering the upper half of her face.

"If you are gonna walk down the path of a hunter, you will eventually meet a situation where you are forced to abandon, or possibly kill, your loved ones... as an act of mercy of course. And there will be a time where you watch them die right before your eyes. You will witness so many death of your comrades, and eventually your own." She nonchalantly said. "So get over it."

Jake shook his head, "How could you treat life and death so lightly?"

"There is another name people use to call us hunter, kid." Brad who was standing besided Salas said. "Do you know what is it?"

Jake and Nila gave their silence as answer.

"They call us the harlot of death." Brad told them.

"Everyday we go to the forest, meeting another death's bitch and performing a dance of death. Death then will chose one of us to fuck, and send the other home with few coins in hands. That's why people sometimes call us the harlot of death, because we are, indeed, death's bitch." Brad explained.

"Every hunter will come to terms with their own death eventually, long before they die." Another hunter who sat on a branch of another tree supplied.

"So like I said; Get over it." Salas chimed in.

The two casted down their gaze to the ground, listening to their seniors' lecture, digesting what they had just said.

"Besides..." Salas added as she woke up and sat herself up, "You were under the monster's mind magic. Mind is a place where many important things reside, Jake. And yours was being manipulated. When a mind is manipulated, it is not only affecting your vision, Jake. It also affects your thoughts, memories, and by that extension; your emotions."

Jake and Nila looked up and turned at her. "What do you mean?" Jake asked.

"Do you never think that it's weird you acted like the way you did? Sure, you hate me and angry at me, but you always can control yourself. Because that's how most kids from the orphanage grow up; suppressing their own feeling for the greater good. Surely in the normal situation, you will listen to me when I told you to stop swinging your sword around, even though you don't want to. Because you know I am your best chance to get yourself and your girlfriend out alive." Salas stood up while pocketing the handkerchief and dusting off her pants.

Jake frowned, he looked at Nila and the girl nodded; She agreed that was how normally he would act.

"There is two factor that cause you acted like you are not you. First, because you hadn't had snickers. Second, because your negative emotions and feelings were amplified several folds by Jade Eyes Jaguar's mind magic." She held out two fingers at them.

"What is snickers?" Nila confused.

"Don't mind it, kid. She do sometimes talking nonsense. You will get used to it." The hunter who sat on a branch of a tree answered.

"Even if that is the truth, I still can't..." Jake looked at both palm of his hands. They were slightly shaken.

"It's okay." Nila took both his hand with her own and looked him in the eye. "It's okay" she held his hands tighter.

"Of course, getting over traumatic incident and not learning from your mistakes are two different matter entirely. So don't confuse one for another. Remember that." Salas warned them.

The group of hunters were silenced by the faint sound of the fourth bell from the city. The next bell would be rung when the sun set.

"Well, you heard the bell. So what will you gonna do? Will you back to city or continue the quest?"

"We will continue the quest." Nila said to her confidently.

"What? No. We will only have two to three hours, Nila. And we already spent twice the time to look for what we needed, and still we found nothing." Jake was against Nila's decision.

"Help us cheat again, Salas." Nila pleaded at the woman, "Just this once, please. You already help us cheat to get our first quest anyway."

Nila said, but suddenly flinched and instinctively took few steps back, the woman before her whose eyes were filled with gentleness a moment ago suddenly looked at her with the eyes of murderer.

A dreadful fear governed over Nila's entire being.

Jake suddenly stood before Nila to protect her from the dangerous woman before them.

Nila looked around, trying to find help from other seniors.

But there she saw, adults with the most evil smiles on their face looking at Salas.